Mariko Aesir
Mariko Aesir, also commonly known as The Rogue Priest, is a former priest of the Church of Elysium. Mariko was once one of the first and foremost members of the church, spreading the good word of her goddess, performing many a good charity and bestowing much of her personal belongings to the masses, despite no such task was required of her. By all means, she was the perfect priest, but then she had to go and screw it up. Due to her faithful service and dedication to both god and cause, a gift was bestowed upon Miss Aesir. It was one of the Planetary Celestial Gate Keys which would allow her to summon forth one of her Goddess' children, The Behemoths. Much to her dismay, the spirit she was granted was less than willing to cooperate. She had been given the key to the behemoth of the moon: Selene. Selene is a very greedy, self-obsessed and unwilling to associate herself with Mariko, or any human for that matter. Despite her best attempts, the Spirit was unwavering in her distaste. Eventually growing tired of this bickering, she made a dire mistake. After reading a particular passage in the sacred texts, she made the mistake of interpreting it as that everything is permissible in mankind's journey to reach godhood, she made the decision to perform a Take-Over on Selene, claiming her body and magic for her own. For this great sin, Mariko was cast out. These days she still performs her duty to preach for the sake of her Goddess while also serving as a mage for Salamander Shade in hopes of utilizing this stolen power for the sake of serving and protecting her fellow man, hoping to redeem herself in the eyes of her Goddess. Appearance Personality and Traits History Synopsis Equipment Powers and Abilities Natural Abilities Godlike Magical Power: '''Mariko has a magic potency like few, considered to be the mage with the fifth greatest magical reserves in the guild. Her magic power easily puts her amongst the ranks of wizard saints, able to spend magic on his spells for hours on end without running dry. She has been described as a mage of cataclysmic power, crushing anything and everyone that opposes her. With this amount of power, even her lesser spells are potent enough to crush their way through steel and dent Adamantine. Magical Abilities Take Over: Spirit Soul '''Take Over: Spirit Soul (, Teiku Ōbā: Supiritto Sōru lit. Confiscation: Various Spirits) is Caster Magic, Lost Magic, and of course, a subspecies of Take Over that deals with a peculiar category of absorbable targets, in this case, anything that can be defined as a "summon beast" (召喚獣, Shōkanjū) or for a more defined term, a spirit, an extremely powerful type of legendary creature that's classified non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body; this includes those brought into the physical realm through the power of other magicians such as Celestial Spirits, Familiar Spirits, Planetary Spirits, Elemenian Spirits, Virago Spirits, and possibly many more that can be categorized as belonging to the definition of Spirit Summoning Magic and are of an ethereal composition; essentially, as long as another magician can summon them, the user is capable of utilizing Take Over on them and taking their souls as well as their powers for their own usage – however, since the term "spirit" encompasses a wide variety of terms, Spirit Soul is also capable of affecting other phantasms, including ghosts and sprites. Since Take Over: Spirit Soul additionally encompasses the likes of ghosts, it can take over the phantasms of exceptionally powerful fighters whom are the embodiment of the concept of heroism and the traits of those whom came before in order to induce almost countless effects varying from user to user, a feat made possible by becoming the heroes who achieved great deeds in life, having become forces of nature and beings of worship in life and after death. As mentioned above, Take Over: Spirit Soul grants the wielder of the magic the ability to assimilate anything that is capable of being categorized as a spirit and from there assume the form of the absorbed being in order to perfectly replicate their powers. Seemingly one of a kind, Take Over: Spirit Soul is a Take Over that attacks the incorporeal as well as the things which hail from alternate dimensions and/or are created/born differently than a vast majority of the other races which roam the mortal plane that's referred to as Earth Land. Indeed, elaborating a little bit more, Take Over: Spirit Soul is an oddity amongst its fellow Lost Magics – while it is indeed an ancient power that existed since what is referred to as the "beginning of magic", in contrast to almost every other form of Lost Magic, which were mostly wiped off the face of the earth and the knowledge of their existences scattered to the sands of time (with the exception of the darling Slayer Magic, of course), Take Over: Spirit Soul is still around even in the current day and age; in addition, because of its overwhelming power and sheer versatility, it was classified as a forbidden magic not quite on the level of the Black Arts, but most definitely on the way to the same level of notoriety. In any case, as usual, in order to initiate Take Over, the user must firstly defeat a living non-humanexistence which is part of the myriad of races that exist within this world of whimsy and wonder, either through pure combat or by some alternative method, sometimes simply through outsmarting the caster's target. Once the user's target is down for the count, the wielder of Take Over then approaches the downed enemy, before focusing intently as they intensify the volatility of the magical energies that are dwelling within their Magic Origin as to excite them exponentially, in the process of doing so, the caster makes physical contact with their target before they force their own Magical Aura to flare up as they surge the arcane energies within themselves into the creature, using their magical energies to force their way into the creature's own Magic Origin and overwhelm it through the method of quickly replacing the target's magical energy with their own, resulting in the loss of magical power causing the body to break down into eternano particles and becoming absorbed into the user's own Magic Origin, thereby storing their physical form and parameters within their arcane organ. In this case, befitting of the name of the magic, Take Over: Spirit Soul only works on phantasmal creatures that can be defined as a spirit, an extremely powerful type of legendary creature that's classified non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body; this includes "summon beasts" (召喚獣, Shōkanjū) which are brought into the physical realm through the power of magic, such as Celestial Spirits and its accompanying magic, Elemenian Spirits, Virago Spirits, Shikigami and its accompanying magic, Lemegeton Spirits, Planetary Spirits, Familiars, embodiments of the four fundamental elements, spirits who dwell in the atmosphere, souls of the departed whether reanimated or not, sprites, and even some demons and countless others as the term "spirit" is known to encompass a wide variety of terms, only loosely categorized as "doesn't fit in other races but definitely isn't human, also ghost as fuck". Originally, Take Over: Spirit Soul's ghostly portion was not a magic by itself, but rather, the crystallization of those who became hailed as legends in their time and possessed a burning desire to continue to live on even in their last moments, afraid that if they perished, the people known throughout the world as "heroes", while they would leave behind countless tales of mysticism and wonder, would also leave those whom they defended unguarded and vulnerable to their enemies. As such, upon passing away, these brave men and women had their Magic Origin resonate to the fullest extent with their souls and emotions, resulting in these valiant fighters becoming something more than human – embodiments of what the heroes stood for in life and their incredible powers, referred to as Legendary Souls (伝説の魂, Densetsu no Damashī), and because of this, while normally, Take Over cannot affect fellow humans, but the warriors that the user of Spirit Soul can affect have become so famous and deadly that they have transcended humanity and become an existence akin to a force of nature, thus allowing the user of Take Over to interpret them as something other than human - or rather, after death, because of their fame and deeds, they become spirits. However, as these criteria would indicate, the warrior-turned-spirit is required to be extremely well-known, beyond any mortal comprehension to become a Legendary Soul, allowing Take Over to consider them non-human. Because of this, the fact that the term "spirit" is open to a vast amount of interpretation, unlike most forms of Take Over and coincidentally similar to Spirit Slayer Magic, Spirit Soul could be considered a rare gem in that it can be categorized as an extremely rare and powerful type of subcategory of magic known as a Semantic-Type (意味型, Imi-gata), meaning that it is a supernatural power that can be defined solely by the caster's interpretation of what it governs over, all depending on their wording rather than anything logical—because of this, Take Over: Spirit Soul can theoretically affect anything that constitutes a "spirit", allowing for a great deal of stretching of what it is capable of. Known by many names, these spirits that the user can affect are powerful, and have offensive, curative or supportive powers as their personal magics more often than not. The crux to Spirit Soul's effectiveness is that when the user absorbs the spirit in question, their contract with the owner is immediately''broken even if the form of the contract the Spirit Summoning Magic possesses is theoretically unbreakable and any other magician cannot forge another contract with the spirit unless the user of Take Over: Spirit Soul relinquishes that power by some means; in other words, the user of Spirit Soul has trapped the summon beast within their Magic Origin, breaking the spirit's body into magical power to use their powers at any time, effectively killing the spirit in question and rendering their body simply a puppet that the user can harness whenever they wish. Before anyone is able to induce the transformation into one of the Legendary Souls through Take Over: Spirit Soul, as mentioned briefly above, the user requires a special tool known as a '''Legacy Emblem' (, Regashī Enburemu lit. Proof of a Worthy Successor), which is a rather small jewel approximately the size of the palm of one's hand in the shape of an item most associated with the spirit in their lifetime, the colour of which depends on the spirit's soul sealed inside of it and the powers that they possess – it's more symbolic of the spirit than anything else. The Legacy Emblem actually holds the soul of the spirit inside and not in a metaphorical way, as the spirit's soul is sealed so that its power can be used by anyone wishing to fuse with it as long as the user possesses the qualities deemed as worthy to inherit their power. If a Legacy Emblem is broken, spirit's soul inside will be freed. Once a potential caster has obtained the Legacy Emblem, the traces of the soul sealed inside the jewel will link with the holder's Magic Origin, resonating harshly to the point that it begins to affect the wielder's mind, causing their own soul to partake in a journey inside of the Legacy Emblem in order to connect with the spirit within. Once within the Legacy Emblem, the hopeful caster will be transported into what can be referred to as a "soul room", an embodiment of the deeds that they had achieved in life, as well as their own personality – effectively, the Legacy Emblem on the inside had become a perfect representation of everything that is known about the spirit, both from secondary sources and the spirit themselves. Once they have passed a test that denotes strength of character, with the spirit commonly deciding that the user is a suitable recipient of their power, the user is able to do battle with the Legendary Soul who resides within the Legacy Emblem, and upon defeat, the Legendary Soul fades away, with the caster surging their Magical Aura into the Legendary Soul, using their magical energy to enter the crystallization's Magic Origin and overwhelm it, quickly replacing the target's magical energy with their own, resulting in the loss of magical power causing the remnants of the spirit's soul to break down into eternano particles and become absorbed into the user's own Magic Origin. In order to actually harness the powers of the Legendary Souls even before and/or after gaining acceptance of the spirit sealed within the Legacy Emblem, one must go through rigorous training or else their life will be in danger if they attempt Take Over: Spirit Soul. As with most other forms of Take Over, Spirit Soul typically grants the user of the magic a truly enormous boost in speed, strength, and durability, as well as some other sort of abilities and the Magic that their target uses. However, in addition to this, as mentioned above, harnessing the power of Take Over: Spirit Soul typically has a much more powerful side-effect than what simply utilizing the magic of the assimilated being grants the user, which is certainly saying something – indeed, the ability to completely shut down any wielder of Spirit Summoning Magic no matter their power and use their spirits against them is utterly invaluable, as it is said that at least fifty Spirit Soul users could eliminate the entirety of the "summoning magician" subculture. Spirit Soul is strange in that most of the time, for more humanoid and goofy looking spirits, the user can choose not to take upon their full appearances, simply their powers and abilities, though it all depends on the user's personal preferences. In this case, Spirit Soul is also capable of generating any weaponry and most magics that the warriors had before they died and were assimilated by this magic. Unlike most other versions of Take Over, Spirit Soul can replicate most forms of Lost Magic, but it cannot flawlessly reproduce any form of Slayer Magic, partly due to the complexity of it as doing so would require a change in the user's biological structure and their Magic Origin must be modified to harness "that which kills" to its fullest extent – and Take Over does not change a Magic Origin during transformation, it simply serves as a storing point for the forms; but mainly, Spirit Soul cannot perfectly remake Slayer Magic because a user of Slayer Magic becoming renowned can be seen as "cheap fame". Because it can be considered a semi-permanent union of magician and spirit, Take Over: Spirit Soul can be considered to be a slightly different version of supernatural being-humanoid fusion-type spells such as Celestial Cross Fuse, Junction, and many more; albeit significantly more powerful in this case as the soul of the spirit is exterminated, thus granting the wielder of Spirit Soul the ability to command all powers free of charge. However, aside from the basic augmentations in both physical and supernatural capabilities, Take Over: Spirit Soul has countless options that the wielder is capable of accessing there is no such thing as a Take Over Soul of this type that is exactly the same as the other, totally not an excuse to not put any more work in to the ability section; additionally, per the fact that in accordance to their summoner's thoughts and feelings, a spirit is able to invoke a peculiar form of transformation in order to alter their appearance to suit what the summoner wishes for, more often than not, two of the same Spirit Souls don't look identical. However, Spirit Soul is simultaneously the most and least variable of the Take Over forms- for the former, generally, the spirits assimilated by Spirit Soul all have wildly varying powers and abilities, and even personal skills, such as master swordsmanship, marksmanship, and magical prowess beyond compare, and for the latter, very few fighters in history can be considered truly legendary forces of nature, and even in the current day, many of them are deceased, simply existing as children's stories. Not only this, if somebody were to find a spirit of choice, by themselves, they would have an extremely slim chance of defeating them and assimilating their form; and this is before taking into account various measures that they could take against Take Over-type magics. Interestingly, alongside the user, the Legendary Soul will become stronger and stronger through every battle that they are equipped in, meaning that the caster and the aligned soul will continue to rise in power all across the board at the same time; after a certain amount of experience has been gained, a user of Take Over: Spirit Soul will be able to transform their Legendary Soul into an evolved state, bolstering its parameters significantly. However, the reason why Take Over: Spirit Soul is an Ancient Spell is that generally, the magic comes at a great cost, or rather, it poses a great risk to the user. Other than generally being more taxing upon the user's magical reserves when they struggle to take control of the summon beast's power and absorb them, due to breaking the contracts between the spirits and their owners, this, more often than not, alerts the head honcho of each band of spirits, meaning that if they do, the user will ''have to face down an astronomically powerful being in a fight that they probably won't be capable of winning by their lonesome, and even then, it can be considered an uphill battle. Because of this, despite its incredible power, Take Over: Spirit Soul was rarely used by magicians back when it was public knowledge, causing it to be designated as an Ancient Spell. '''Selene' Selene is Mariko' first and only spirit to be caught. Selene is the Behemoth of the moon and s such stands as the third most powerful of the behemoths, a fact Mariko has made a habit of rubbing in her opponents faces by going excessively far with her power. In traditional cases, one needs to forge a powerful bond with their behemoth in order to unlock their power. However, as Mariko took the fast route to power by performing take over, she has now managed to claim the full unadulterated power of Selene with the prize of her kin's scorn and rejection. The moon Behemoth is a godly creature with next to no equal. Selene makes use of the Dreamer's Gaze to hypnotize and confuse opponents before obliterating them with Arcanism. Natural Abilities Godlike Strength: '''As a Behemoth, Selene's true power is almost beyond compare. However, like the rest of her kin, the power she possesses is limited by the wielder of their key, so if the bond between holder and spirit is weak, then the spirit will be very much alike in its might. However, as Mariko had the audacity to perform Take-Over on the poor spirit, she received its full power without having to worry about the bond itself. As such, the full muscular power is at her disposal, able to punch through anything before her with ease. Adamantine, Blackrock and even the likes of Magnanium, one of the hardest, if not the hardest alloy known to man will give way for her incredible power. Entire landscapes dread her approach, humans and other mortals are barely anything to consider threats anymore after the transformation. '''Godlike Speed: When transformed into Selene, Mariko will begin to know speeds unthinkable. On a consitent basis, she can move at speeds surpassing 200 mph on a consistent basis, however, when she really pushes the limits, she effetively vanishes from view, barely even an after image is left behind after this sudden surge of speed. Godlike Endurance: Immensely Enhanced Magic Power: